whose might is placed on the side of right, and who do grim battle against chaos and all misrule. You will generally find on the faces of such men an expression of conflict, sometimes of weariness, sometimes of habitual sadness; but that look of sore conflict is rarely absent.

On the other hand, how harsh and grating to the spiritual sensibilities is it to find oneself at any time, by necessity or charity, not by choice, among coarse, profane, or cruel people. We feel ourselves worse, for the time, by such contact; out of our element, unhinged, glad when escape arrives. The external coarseness and vulgarity of some persons tell at once of inward bluntness or baseness of feeling, or the absence of all feeling; and we have a sense of alienation as though conversing with a different being, with no tastes and few inclinations in common, from whom we shrink as from an unknown animal of probably dangerous proclivities. All which comes through the channel of external appearances, indicating internal conditions.

Only a few days ago I was forcibly struck with one form of the influence of externals. A party of us were privileged to see the interior of one of our smallest, but most beauful cathedrals, with only the organist, a friend of some of the party, to conduct us through the noble vistas, and point out objects of especial interest. Presently we seated ourselves down the nave, while our friend gave us a suggestive voluntary on the organ. As the pure tones rolled up and through the great arches of the otherwise silent church, one of us, at least, became swayed beneath the influence of sweet music and lofty arch, sinking into still reception, while the flood of harmony coursed at will over the subdued spirit. Doubtless the elevating influence of that far vault of stone, almost lost in the distance, had much to do with inducing such a

mental condition, and preparing for the reception of suggestive phases. of melody about which an accompaniment flashed and intertwined, like honeysuckle about a rose. Now the most gorgeous service perfectly performed, without the life of a spiritual rendering, is utterly worthless; and probably the simple but hearty prayer of any poor widow is more acceptible in God's sight than the intonation of a hundred voices. Yet we must all acknowledge the influence of externals as we listen to and join in faultless music rolling through lofty arches soaring like a forest. Here I may remark that few things external to ourselves have such power over us as music, which oftentimes is like a hand passed over the rim of a musical glass, starting it into tone. A strain of music oftentimes starts up feelings long buried, and half memories of feelings, and of friends and circumstances sunk far into the past; changing quickly our mental tone from joy to sorrow, or the reverse, from despondency to hope, from careful anxiety to ease of heart.

What shall we say of the influence of externals when a whole assembly of Alpine peaks stands for us in the rosy light of sunrise, glittering in the far sky? or when, among the upper summits, from an even snowy carpet of dazzling white, rise hundreds of nameless peaks on either hand, seeming to pierce a sky whose azure hue is so intense as to find no parallel in nature, save the gentian, which expands its lovely flowers close to the glacier? Does not the power of such a scene expand the heart and lift it into regions of delight, radiant as the sunrise, calm as the tall pinnacles round the upper birthplace of the glacier? As we gaze, do we not seem ourselves lifted above the earth, and disposed. to exult in the power of the Almighty, who hath so framed these amazing mountain forms, and lifted them an hour into the sunset? The influence

of country so grand as theirs has undoubtedly told largely in the physical and moral power of Swiss and Tyrolese, rendering them a brave little people, and implanting in their breasts an ardent love of country, a patriotism seldom equalled in the world. The dweller in lowland plains of Holland has less to fix his love upon, in natural features of his flat country: but every mountain form, each glacier, each river, the wild storms of winter and spring's brightest carpeting of flowers, all are well known and familiar, as well as dear to the heart of nearly every Swiss. The more rugged and barren the rocks of any country, the nearer they entwine about the hearts of its people.

Here I come to speak of the influence of externals as exemplified in one's country, and the bearing upon character exercised by the civilisation, or the want of it, among which we live. What should we have become, had it pleased God that we had been born in the wild region of the Upper Nile sources, among barbarous negroes, perhaps cannibals, painting their black skins with many-coloured pigments, and given to mad and superstitious practices, without any knowledge save the very rudest and most fragmentary, and with no means of learning one of the simplest truths known to every English child? The very thought makes one shudder. We boast ourselves of our knowledge and civilisation: but it is simply the goodness of God that has caused us to be born amid the light of Western Europe. It might have pleased Him for our eyes to have opened upon the mud cabins of naked savages, and ourselves to have become just as they are: we might have eaten of their impure feasts, been joined to their cruel. and superstitious customs, had their blind ignorance, and lived and died in all the barbarity they esteem as mere matter of course. It is curious

:

to reflect on the possibilities that might have befallen us, had our birthplace been other than what it is or cast back a few hundred years, when this bright England lay in the twilight of knowledge; or still more remote times, when great horned elks roamed the wilds, and naked men feasted on fish and wild fruits, contending with hoards of savage animals thronging the great woods. How different our lot might have been! Where would have been our religious and scientific knowledge, as we watched the planet Venus gleaming in the west after sundown? Where our warm clothing, our ready food, our home and social comforts? So will we be thankful our birth lay in the ages it did, our infancy passed in the light and delights of the present century.

How differently a person feels and acts at different times, even of the same day, when surroundings are varied and his mind is variously occupied! I am writing on an early summer's morning: it wants two hours until breakfast time, and my household is all asleep-wife and children, visitors and servants-all asleep probably at this moment, without a thought of me writing here. alone. About me is the mute companionship of leaves. I raise my eyes, which rest on volumes of the Bible; of Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson; of Wilson, A.K.H.B., Dickens; of Smiles, Carlyle, Borrow; of Forbes, Ramsay, Herschel; of Horace, Virgil, Homer, Pascal, Lamartine; so you see I have some little selection indicated by these few volumes, if disposed to read. As I look through my little study window, graceful laburnums are seen drooping their many-golden flowers—

Laburnums, dropping wells of fire,

as Tennyson has it, prettily contrasted with lilacs, beneath which are two comfortable garden seats, hinting of social evenings on the

grass. Amid all this I have leisure, and time to think: presently all this will be changed, and a lively group, holding some of those dearest to me on earth, be gathered round the breakfast-table, in pleasant conversation and easy social equality. This will bring its own frame of mind, probably a cheerful one; for our English breakfast is generally a cheerful meal, though we have not yet achieved (even were it altogether desirable to achieve) the "free breakfast - table" some politicians talk about. Following upon this will come a different scene for myself, a group of externals carrying their own peculiar influence, when I shall be engaged upon special duties involving considerable thought and care and discrimination, taking in the interests of others perhaps more than my own; and shall be surrounded by severer things-books, truly, but far different from these, on other topics; and by a host of paraphernalia which, were I to tell you, would at once denote my usual work in life. There will come with such externals another change over the mind, and greater strain, with closer application and altered forms of thought, when I shall have no time to think of the laburnams or my favourite rose, or dwell upon the conversation of my merry breakfast friends; but my work then will knot itself together, and require careful handling to unravel its details and set them clear. So much I know; but what subtle processes of thought may go on, or what feelings come and possess me, or what sense of care environ me. I know not: these

things are as the play of light and shade on the surface of a lake. My mental conditions under these three states will vary much from each other, being largely influenced by things external. Yet this is what we may term a common day, without anything special to distinguish it from other days: so mightily are we swayed by things without us.

But I must draw this essay to a close, leaving much unsaid which might have been advanced touching other forms of the influence of externals. And in doing so would again remark that our thanks are due for every good influence leading to the Right; every kindly office and custom and institution of this our country, tending to keep us on the side of order. Most of us need to give thanks for good parents and kindly friends, remembering God for these advantages; while we tremble to think what we might have become had we been born and reared in the reeking atmosphere, the moral and material filth of haunts of vice, only too prevalent in all great towns. Why were we made to differ from the poor woman who daily washes her fingers away, yet cannot clothe her little ones even in rags because of the extravagance of her. brutal husband, who returns home towards morning only to beat her, already overwearied, body and spirit, by a long day's hardship! Here we are brought up to one of the mysteries of life, and can only know-it was the will of God: for which will towards us let us be thankful, and strive to help those less advantaged.

H. P.

COULD Ugo Foscolo, instead of being carried to Florence in a coffin, travel now thither in a first-class carriage, enjoying the Alpine scenery, and basking, like his fellow-passengers, in the glorious sunlight spreading its vivid rays over Mount Cenis, he would be startled at the wondrous transformation that had taken place since his day in the condition of Italy. During the forty-four years in which the patriot, soldier, and poet, has been lying in his narrow home at Chiswick, many and many have been the vicissitudes undergone by his political, if not geographical native land. Innumerable hopeless conspiracies and ill-advised Carbonari movements, invariably ending in the shedding of the best Italian blood, and culminating in the execution of the Brothers Bandiera, in 1844, followed each other, until the accession of Pio Nono to the Pontificate. When Pius IX. became the guardian of the keys of St. Peter, great rejoicings took place in Rome, and the phenomenon of a liberal Pope inspired the too sanguine population with hopes of future freedom and regeneration. Then the revolution of 1848 broke forth in Paris, and the Milanese at once rose, and after five days of hard fighting, put to flight, with heavy loss, the 20,000 Austrians that garrisoned the city. Piedmont declared war against Austria; the Italian arms at first prospered, and the expulsion of the hated stranger was all but achieved. But the tide turned, and the French and the Spaniards eagerly advanced to the rescue of tyranny, oppression, and ignorant despotism. So the Germans as well as the Italian princes came back, and riveted the chains still more tightly on their unhappy subjects; and

where they had scourged with rods, they now scourged with scorpions. But a Cavour arose, and a Napoleon III., and a Bismarck. Napoleon could not check the torrent he had turned loose; and notwithstanding the treaty of Villafranca, Italy became one "from the Alps to the Adriatic." Rotten throne after throne toppled over, until at last the temporal power itself, the great incubus that has weighed for centuries over Italy, impeding its progress, bearing down civilisation and enlightenment like an Old Man of the Sea, fell at a touch, as a house of cards.

Ugo Foscolo, who, in the latter years of his life had began to despair of Italy and the Italians, would now rub his eyes, to discover if he were dreaming; and when convinced that his formerly apparently impossible aspirations had been realised, he would be content to occupy the cold habitation prepared for him at Santa Croce, and to sleep there for evermore.

Zante was the birth-place of Ugo Foscolo, when the Ionian Islands still formed a part of the Venetian dominions. His father was a physician and inspector of hospitals at Spalatro, in Dalmatia; and little Ugo saw the light in 1778, according to some, and in 1775 according to others, during a residence of his family at Zante. As a boy, he distinguished himself for his assiduous attention to his studies at a school in Venice, whither he had been sent. As a young man, he was noted in the University of Padua for his profound knowledge of the Latin classics. He quitted the university without adopting any profession; but in 1797 he brought out, in the theatre of Sant' Angelo, in Venice, his tragedy of "Tieste," written in

It con

imitation of Alfieri's style. tained the same paucity of characters, the same rugged abruptness, deep-toned feeling, and powerful bursts of invective and political declamation, as were affected by the great poet of Asti; but Ugo Foscolo did not possess the loftiness and grandeur of Alfieri's muse. The subject itself is repulsive. The morals of the ancient Hellenes differed from the morals of modern western nations, and the story of Tyestes was not attractive even to a Venetian audience. Moreover, incongruities were not wanting. Tyestes spoke the sentiments of Foscolo's times; and in the fourth act, Atreus and Perseus held a political controversy, the former defending the system of Machiave'. Fancy Julius Cæsar and Cassius discussing the points of the Magna Charta! Nevertheless, for a lad of about twenty, the tragedy was a most praiseworthy composition, and it contrasted favourably with the turgid and inflated dramas of his contemporaries, such as Giovanni Pinde

monte.

France was then regarded as the teacher and regenerator of mankind, and all those Italians who hoped for the salvation of their country from the slough of ignorance and stagnation into which it had fallen had their eyes turned towards France. Foscolo, his mind imbibed with the past glories of the Greek and Italian Republics, proceeded to Milan, which had become the head-quarters of all the most restless partisans of the new order of things. Individuals from all parts of Italy had flocked thither; men speaking different dialects, wearing different garb, possessing different manners, and following different laws. They formed a motley, heterogeneous mass, inspiring little confidence to Foscolo, who, in an irascible and misanthropic mood, contemplated the Republican

vortex with the disdainful eye of a Juvenal. He could not conceive that out of that chaos of conflicting and discordant elements a united nation should arise. Nevertheless, the first step forward was the expulsion of the stranger-i. e., the Teuton; and, with the energy of his nature, he devoted warmly his pen and his sword to the service of his country. He accepted a commission in the Cisalpine forces which were being created; he accompanied the French army during its campaign against the Russians under Sowwarow, in 1799; and after the defeats of Novi, Cassano, and La Trebbia, he was shut in with Massena in Genoa. The horrors of that celebrated siege have been related in a former number of this magazine.' During the investment Foscolo was not idle. He exhorted the Genoese to a vigorous resistance, practising himself what he preached; and inspired, as was usual with him, by a beautiful woman, he composed a sonnet entitled "La Caduta da Cavallo," dedicated to Luigia Palavicini. When the place fell, he was conveyed, as prisoner of war, to Antibes by an English ship; in due course he was released, and returned to Milan.

The battle of Marengo soon changed the position of affairs. Bonaparte was once more the master of Italy, and numerous Italian eyes were turned hopefully towards him. But Foscolo had no faith in him; and his letter, dated 17th March, 1798, proves it. This letter, which is found in only two of the editions of his works, says :—“ Many put their trust in this young hero of Italian blood, born where our language is spoken. But no useful or magnanimous resolve in our favour can be expected from a cruel and base nature. It signifies little his being endowed with the vigour and the fury of the lion, if he possesses